'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎168r] (340/862)

"* I
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
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province of Mesopotamia had the Syrian Khabur and Jabal Sinjar
as its frontier but reached the Tigris near Pesh Khabur (fig. 53). 1
The Parthian State
The Parthian Empire was a ramshackle and feudalized edition of
its predecessor. Much of the administrative machinery of the
Seleucids was retained, but many provinces were turned into vassal
kingdoms and even the provinces proper tended to become kingdoms
in the hands of hereditary satraps: later ages called the Arsacids the
‘kings of the sub-kingdoms’. The land was ruled by a great land
owning nobility of sub-kings and satraps who contributed their levy
of retainers to the Parthian army. The Arsacids seem to have been
content with a nominal suzerainty and made few demands upon
their subjects either for money or for men. Though not true Zoro-
astrians, they adopted the popular form of the Mazdaean religion and
were tolerant of all other sects.
The strength of the Parthians was in military science. Cavalry
was their main arm, and consisted of mounted archers, lightly
armoured, who specialized in the ‘Parthian shot’, fired in retreat
backward over the crupper, and also of heavily armoured ‘cataphracts’
clad in mail who carried a spear of huge size. The aristocracy
provided the cataphracts and trained their retainers—not their
slaves—as mounted bowmen. The Parthian army was small, as in
most feudal states, never more than 6,000 cataphracts and 34,000
bowmen, but mobile and hard to destroy. Hence came the unaggres-
sive character of the Parthian Empire and its long life. But the alien
nature of the army provided no bond with the peasant peoples of
Mesopotamia, who had been mainly infantrymen since the dis
appearance of the chariot. The horses came from Media, where the
Parthians bred a huge strain of the ‘Nisean’ steed, resembling the
vast Flemish war horses of medieval times. Strabo says that they had
a ‘shape of their own’ and the common people compared them to
elephants.
Parthian Mesopotamia (fig. 53)
Alike in political and military organization, social customs, and
religious beliefs, the peoples of Mesopotamia were very much left
to themselves by the Arsacids, and native characteristics developed
apace. The general civilization of Parthian Mesopotamia was a
mixture of Semitic, Greek, and Iranian elements, best known from
1 See Geographical Handbook of Syria, B.R. 513, p. 116.